As the Mad Matty March sale continues let's take a look at another figure who presents a vital character to the Masters of the Universe mythos, Skeletor's right hand witch Evil-Lyn. More specifically though this is a review of the, as you'll soon see, far superior variant Battleground Evil-Lyn!

When Evil-Lyn was first released in the MOTUC line, Mattel opted to use the paint deco of the original vintage figure which had a blue outfit and more to the point, yellow skin. I mean banana slug yellow! Many fans were upset that she was not done in her more familiar flesh tone skin and purple outfit from both cartoons, 200X figure, many comic books... hell the majority of media! Mattel finally gave us a new version of Evil-Lyn that is more what we remember.

BG Evil-Lyn comes in the standard MOTUC packaging with the back showing off other figures as well as a new bio. While they could have just reused the same bio form the first figure, instead this bio expands on the new overall story being established.

Wow, this bio really plays the whole "make the readers want to know more" card. So Skeletor and Lyn were married and had a son?!? Pretty cool, but this bio makes it sound like Lyn went against Skeletor completely from day one and traditionally she stuck by him while slowly plotting behind his back. I've mentioned before how the overall story would have worked better with Hordak released earlier by Skeletor himself, and now we have confirmation that Gygor didn't work out as an ally either. You'd think Lyn would learn from her mistakes after the first two times.

Personally I also would prefer the Three Towers to be around for a while before the final big end battle. Also the "New Sorceress" thing is a BIG issue I hate, but I'll discuss that in another review. (I warn you it won't be pretty!)

One thing that bothers me is there is no explanation for the change in skin color.... unless, and I REALLY hope this is not what was meant to be implied, the bio states how she was stripped of her powers (Something that's okay if we take it as her ultimate, final, end of the story fate) does this mean she changed skin color because of this? Is the better looking Evil-Lyn supposed to be one that has no powers? If so, I have to say that's really giving a giant middle finger to the fans! It would actually be more acceptable, and more plausible, if the yellow skinned version was the one that had been affected by something. That's usually a symptom of a big health issue.

All right, so let's talk about the actual figure and see why she's so much better than the first version.

For the most part BG Evil-Lyn is a straight up repaint of the first Evil-Lyn figure, which itself was a mostly straight up repaint of the Teela figure. This was the first standard female buck and featured most of the same articulation points as the male. It does however have no ab crunch joint, which is not a bad thing as these tend to not look so good on female figures in any line. The buck actually does have waist swivel, but the figure's outfit is not exactly designed to work with it. Since it is a one solid piece outfit, it exposes the hip joints when turned which doesn't look good.

Something that a number of fans weren't too happy about is that this figure still uses the same outfit as Teela, and not the more unique 200X style outfit. The 4 Horsemen have stated that they felt a 200X outfit would not have worked well with the original female buck and the 2.0 buck was not quite ready yet while they were working on her. Now that it is available, it's possible we could get another variant down the line, but for now we've got this, and I'm happy with it. While I do agree a more unique outfit would have boosted this figure's appearance, the color scheme is the main draw for me and that was nailed perfectly.

Aside from the biggie, which is of course her skin done in a slightly pale but still human looking flesh tone, her outfit utilizes the purple and black look fans know so well with a good amount of silver highlights mixed in. Her black helmet has a nice glossy shine giving a more metallic look to it. As a new addition she features an awesome cape. The cape is done in a purple color with a bit of black-wash that looks fantastic. It is made of a softer more pliable plastic so it does not hinder her or weigh her down at all. It easily slips off, you don't even have to remove her head.

Speaking of heads, Battleground Evil-Lyn helps escape the simple cheep repaint curse by including an alternate head that fans have wanted for a long time.

For the first time we have a Lyn figure that features an unhelmeted head. We first saw Evil-Lyn without her helmet in the Filmation episode "The Witch and the Warrior" where she had very short, like practically a buzz cut, white hair. Interestingly the original script for the episode called for her to have black hair, but the final episode left it white. For the 200X series she was again shown to have white hair, but it was a longer style with a feathered look to it. The figure uses the 200X style for the hair and captures the look wonderfully. It really helps show how Evil-Lyn may be a black-hearted, conniving, backstabbing witch... but she's still pretty hot!

Though I tend to display the figure in my collection with the helmeted head, I really like the look of the helmetless head and am very happy it was included. (in fact I actually bought a second figure because of it) Another change to the sculpt is her left hand which now has the open spell-casting hand. This sculpt is the same as the scratching hand introduced on Catra, but does not have the overly soft feel that one did. One other new feature is the gauntlets on her arms can now be rotated. Many fans felt the original design was backwards and the longer part should move towards her elbow. You can now turn them to however you wish to pose the design.

For weapons she comes with the same knife as her previous version, but thankfully painted in realistic colors with a silver blade. She also comes with her staff, again the same sculpt in different colors. Now the first release had two handles, one short scepter and one long staff. This version has only the long staff and instead comes with two different heads for the staff. The one is done with a purple orb while the other is designed with a glow in the dark orb. Unfortunately I can't really show it off in it's full effect as it's darn near impossible to photograph without a blacklight. This is the best I could do and it's digitally enhanced!

Evil-Lyn is an absolute must have character for any MOTU collection and this new version is in my, and frankly most fans opinions, the far better one. I can understand putting out the yellow skinned version for collectors in a pure nostalgic point of view, but I really feel this is the version we should have gotten first. If you don't have an Evil-Lyn yet, then this is the version to go for. About the only thing the original version has going for it over this one is that it came with the pack-in of Screeech.

Battleground Evil-Lyn is available now on Mattycollector.com as part of the Mad Matty March sale which goes on through March 20th, and as such is marked down 10% off the normal price. Supplies are limited so grab her while you can. Good Luck, and until next time, Good Journey!

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